I have realized that while I may have wanted a definitive answer, I wasn’t likely to receive it. I don’t have to make a big “forever decision”. My husband and I simply have to discern and decide what is best for us now, at this stage in life, or even just this month. At any juncture we can change course if we want to.

Children do not establish a family, only the love of the two in matrimony under God does. I look at Saints Anne and Joachim, and how they direct us back to their daughter, who directs us back to her son, Love itself. If they can still have hope in God despite their pain and uncertainty, maybe I can take the first step in simply uttering a small, "Love I trust you".

There are losses in life that are visible, and there are losses that are invisible. This one feels like both. We didn't lose a child we held in our arms, but we lost the expectation of children conceived through our love. We lost the ease of a future we had always assumed. We lost something deeply intimate and deeply personal.